Friday, August 17, 2007

In one of the early scenes of a late '90's movie entitled "Tea With Mussolini", a character described the current age, the years preceding World War II, as an age of "great dictators". The reference was, of course, to Benito Mussolini in Italy, Adolf Hitler in Germany, Josef Stalin in the Soviet Union. Those who saw the movie may recall that it was, in turns, tragic and light hearted. It was, in fact, director Franco Zeffirelli's story of his childhood in Italy during World War II. As in Boris Pasternak's novel Dr. Zhivago, we witness a monolithic state crushing dreams, hopes, life itself.

Both Hitler and Stalin came to realize that it was possible to eradicate the unpredictability of human affairs in "the true central institution of totalitarian organizational power": the concentration camp. What Arendt saw is that eradicating unpredictability requires altering the nature of human beings. In the camps the internees' deprivation of all rights, even of the ability to make a conscientious choice, does away with the dynamic conflict between the legality of particular positive laws and the idea of justice on which, in constitutional governments, an open and unpredictable future depends. On the one hand, in Arendt's concept of totalitarianism, human freedom is seen as inconsequential to "the undeniable automatism" of natural and historical processes, or at most as an impediment to their freedom. On the other, when "the iron band of terror" destroys human diversity, so totally dominating human beings that they cease to be individuals and become a mere mass of identical, interchangeable specimens "of the animal-species man," those processes are provided with "an incomparable instrument" of acceleration.

A "state" wishing to eradicate "unpredictability of human affairs" must make of its own apparatus an inhuman machine utterly lacking empathy. SS members become mere interchangeable parts in a killing machine. Master and slave alike cease to be entirely human. This is the state as machine. Such a state requires its Auschwitz, its Abu Ghraib, its Guantanamo.

In World War I enemy aliens were regularly interned "as a temporary emergency measure," (see "Memo: Research Project on Concentration Camps") but later, in the period between World Wars I and II, camps were set up in France for non-enemy aliens, in this case stateless and unwanted refugees from the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Arendt also noted that in World War II internment camps for potential enemies of democratic states differed in one important respect from those of World War I. In the United States, for instance, not only citizens of Japan but "American citizens of Japanese origin" were interned, the former maintaining their rights of citizenship under the Geneva Conventions while the latter, uprooted on ethnic grounds alone, were deprived of theirs by executive order and without due process.

I cannot claim to be an expert on the work of Hannah Arendt and I most certainly have not read all her works. But in her famous phrase, the banality of evil, I find a natural affinity with the work of Dr. Gustav Gilbert whose job it was to interview the Nazi war criminals on trial at Nuremberg. Gilbert may have found in those interviews the psychological nature of evil, an utter lack of empathy.

From that moment on Arendt said she "felt responsible." But responsible for what? She meant that she, unlike many others, could no longer be "simply a bystander" but must in her own voice and person respond to the criminality rampant in her native land.

The issue of "responsibility" is central if "evil" is to be dealt with effectively from both a philosophical and a psychological standpoint. Responsibility is the very essence of morality, or more precisely, the essence of any attempt to base morality upon something other than commandment. Responsibility is the very essence of Existentialism. Sartre said that man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Earlier, Voltaire challenged French aristocracy when he declared: "I have no name but the name I have made for myself." A machine made of de-humanized humans is utterly evil, utterly without empathy.

They[Nazis] consciously sought to articulate and construct a Nazi modernity and heralded their institutions and technological systems with no less enthusiasm than Jünger, even if they did so in much worse prose.

Purely philosophical approaches to state and personal ethics are inadequate. Most philosophical systems are concerned with "good actions" or "bad actions". Greek epicureans, for example, measure the good against an ideal good life in which both are associated in some way with pleasure. Yet, for some, those responsible for setting up Abu Ghraib for example, evil itself is pleasurable. These people are commonly called perverts. Topcliffe was one. Torquemada was surely another. Epicureanism does not exculpate sadists. Pleasure as a measure of goodness is therefore inadequate and violates Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative demands behavior that is necessary unconditionally. By contrast, a situational ethic involves choices or behavior conditioned upon a desired result. For example: you must pay your bills and maintain a good credit rating if you wish to get a mortgage.

A. J. Bahm made a distinction between good and bad intentions. At last, one feels that qualities of goodness or badness are literally put upon the individual as if some non-spatial, non-temporal Platonic ideal had been simply imposed upon pure existence. A "good" intention does not define good; rather, it presupposes a knowledge of it.

Arendt might not discount efforts to separate good actions from bad actions but seems more interested in good intentions and finds in the individual his/her response to others, the connections with one person to another, indeed, humanity as a whole to be the basis by which evil is distinguished from good. As an ethic, it was a new approach.

What are the psychological differences between one who feels responsible for his/her country compared to those who are indifferent? Clearly, an evil person cannot be expected to feel badly or guilty about being evil. Likewise, one would not have expected committed Nazis to have felt "responsible" for the direction of Germany under Hitler. One wonders how those who made Auschwitz run felt about their jobs, themselves. Likewise, one wonders how the American GOP sleeps at night, how its members make peace with themselves, why they, in fact, have more night terrors and bad dreams than other folk.

In my own case, having loved what I thought my own country to be, I felt responsible when, over a period of some four years, I saw every cherished principle attacked, eschewed, subverted and, in other ways, rejected or trashed! Many of my feelings were less than noble and still are. I am only human. Bush put to us all a choice. We were either for him or against him. I made the right choice.

In a sense, we are all corrupted by the system upon which we depend for a livelihood. My interests in this system were attacked and put in jeopardy. But these were legitimate interests for which I make no apology. In other cases, I was surprised to learn about myself that I could not, would not live with or compromise the subversion of the rule of law, due process of law, the basic rights that I believe are not only our birthright but, in fact, belong to everyone. With Bush's usurpation of the US government, those ideals are all but gone. Like Arendt, I felt responsible, as an American, for what Bush had done in my name! All that remained to be seen was how Bush would bring about a "state" wishing to eradicate the "unpredictability of human affairs". We have over some six years witnessed astounding progress toward that goal. What remains for Bush when it becomes clear that his increasingly dictatorial policies inspire, in turn, increasingly desperate resistance not merely among the hard pressed people of Iraq, but, likewise the increasingly hard pressed people of the US?

The American right wing is defined by the lies it tells about American History, the American left, and, most importantly, is own troubling past. Recently, the right wing has tried to blame "leftists" for America's late entry into World War II. It was, in fact, American fascists who opposed a US role in World War II because most of them were either doing business with Hitler or because they desired to create a fascist state in America.

There was a fundamental difference between the Anti-war movement in the United States prior to our entry into WWII and the opposition to our entry into WWI, for example. Demographically and ideologically, the opposition to US entry into WWI was more akin to US opposition to Viet Nam. Both were movements based upon ideals of universal social justice, the rule of law, anti-colonialism, anti-fascism, and common humanity. The fascist, right wing opposition to US involvement in WWII shared none of those ideals. Those opposing the US entry into WWII were typified by Charles Lindbergh, an avowed Fascist, most certainly, a Nazi sympathizer.

From the end of the Civil War until World War I, America had been largely pacifist in nature. The Civil War had been a horrible memory that militated against armed conflict in general. To be precise, Americans rallied in response to Hearst's anti-Spanish propaganda in the run up to the Spanish-American War. Nevertheless, Woodrow Wilson won the White House based largely on his promises of peace' he was re-elected in 1916 with a popular slogan: "He kept us out of war."

While Americans in general opposed involvement in foreign wars, American industrialists were not inclined to turn down a quick buck.

On December 20, 1922 the New York Times reported4 that automobile manufacturer Henry Ford was financing Adolph Hitler's nationalist and anti-Semitic movements in Munich. Simultaneously, the Berlin newspaper Berliner Tageblatt appealed to the American Ambassador in Berlin to investigate and halt Henry Ford's intervention into German domestic affairs. It was reported that Hitler's foreign backers had furnished a "spacious headquarters" with a "host of highly paid lieutenants and officials." Henry Ford's portrait was prominently displayed on the walls of Hitler's personal office:

Opposition to US involvement in World War II is most often linked to Charles Lindbergh.

However, most AFC supporters were neither liberal, nor Socialist. Many simply wanted to stay out of the war. Since many also came from the Midwest, an area never as sensitive to European problems as the east coast, isolationist arguments was soon buttressed by more traditional prejudices against eastern industrial and banking interests. (Almost two-thirds of the Committee’s 850,000 registered supporters would eventually come from the Midwest, mostly from a radius of three hundred miles around Chicago.)[13] Many AFC supporters were certain industry and the banks wanted war for their own profit.[14] Many other supporters were Republicans who flocked to the AFC for partisan political reasons. Still others were covertly pro-German. Some were German-Americans whose sentimental attachments had not been diminished by the crimes of the Nazi regime. Others, whether of German origin or not, were attracted to Hitler’s racism and anti-Semitism.

Ideologically, Bush and Lindbergh have much in common. It is no stretch to imagine this faction welcoming a Hitler victory in Europe, perhaps plotting a Nazi coup d'etat in the US had that happened.

Lindbergh wanted Hitler to destroy the Soviet Union, and was willing to accept Nazi domination of Europe as the price.[118] His protests to the contrary are not convincing.[119] Long before most Committee members, he had come to believe the existence of the Soviet Union had made Hitler’s dictatorship necessary. The German invasion of Russia in June 1941 made the need to keep America out of the war greater than ever. As a result, the efforts of America Firsters to keep America neutral became more frenetic as German successes in Russia mounted, and Roosevelt’s efforts to enter the war increased.

Lindbergh opposed US entry into WWII for the same reasons the Bush family continued to do business with Hitler and the Nazis' after war had begun. The Bush family were Hitler's trading partners.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behavior has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

...

Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.

The first set of files, the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress, show that Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of a number of companies involved with Thyssen.

The second set of papers, which are in the National Archives, are contained in vesting order number 248 which records the seizure of the company assets. What these files show is that on October 20 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director. Having gone through the books of the bank, further seizures were made against two affiliates, the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation. By November, the Silesian-American Company, another of Prescott Bush's ventures, had also been seized. --

By now it is common knowledge, verified in the public record, that in October of 1942, Prescott Bush was accused of "Running Nazi front groups in the United States". He was charged under the Trading With the Enemy Act as the US government shut down the operations at New York's Union Banking Corporation.

Bush's actions might have been considered high treason. They are interesting by virtue of the myriad connections about what is commonly referred to as the "Bush Crime FAmily" --Avril Harriman, the Rockefellers, Allen Dulles, James Baker III, Gulf Oil, Pennzoil, and ominously, Osama bin Laden. The connections are labyrinthine, involving a host of corporate connections, high ranking Nazis, the CIA and Allen Dulles.

More recently, we have learned of yet more Bush family treasons. It has been learned that Prescott Bush, the "President's" grandfather, was involved in a fascist coup attempt to overthrow the government of the United States.

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Certainly, opposition to the US entry into World War II was not essentially "leftist". It was, rather, the right wing that overtly supported Hitler's adventures in Europe. Their opposition was, in fact, an ideological opposition to the US opposition to Hitler. There is a stunning picture of American Nazis giving the Nazi salute as they filed past the coffins of German Nazis killed in the crash of the airship Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

Some recent history may be in order. Before their resurgence amid delicious vindication, the Dixie Chicks were vilified by the same crowd that attacked dissenters for daring to compare Bush with Hitler. In Europe, by contrast, the similarities were clear and irrefutable, quite beyond the power of Fox to spin or lie about.

one woman who is a translator and teacher of German-language literature – a woman who lived in Germany for ten years and has immersed herself in the German culture for twenty years said that among the people in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, and among Holocaust survivors in the United States, she hears the parallels between Bush and Hitler and the similarities between the United States now and Germany in the 1930’s all the time. ”She writes:”

“It's almost like this knowledge is a given--a basic assumption shared by everyone I know who is intimately familiar with the Nazi era (that is, 90% of my professional colleagues, clients, collaborators, etc.). It is like the unspoken known. Unspoken, and unspeakable"

The most recent right wing variation about WWII peaceniks had its origins in Bush's run up to war against Iraq. It goes like this: the allies had already done all the hard work because US "Peaceniks" did not want to go to war. Opposition to US entry into WWII did not resemble Viet Nam era war opposition much of which opposed war on principle. US Nuremberg Prosecutor, Justice Robert Jackson conceded that Europe had borne the brunt of war but it was not "leftist peaceniks" who wanted to keep the US out of the war.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Richard Nixon is associated with Southern Strategy as well as his enemies list, the secret bombing of Cambodia or the burglary of Democratic Headquarters at Watergate --the cover up, the hearings, the lies and, eventually, the threat of impeachment. Nixon's Southern Strategy turned a solid Democratic South into GOP occupied territory. It was not a simple appeal to bigotry that did it. It required the Democrats do what was right while Nixon strategists plotted what was wrong. They succeeded. GOP appeals to bigotry and hatred are now well-practiced.

It is appalling to find in the US a level of hatefulness that one hoped had been laid to rest in the battlefields of the Civil War. From the ashes of the "Old South" rose a mean and prejudiced spirit, just as from the ashes of Watergate rose a radicalized and reactionary GOP.

In Monroe, LA I found, in the only large bookstore in town, a huge section devoted to various Civil War books. That is to be expected. Bothersome was the fact that most of them dealt with the 'betrayal of the South'. Across town, just a stone's throw by big city standards is the Civil War Cemetery, a more sobering reminder of tragedy.

Farther afield, down the road is Vicksburg, MS, where the forces of Ulysses S. Grant had approached by way of the Mississippi River from Memphis only to learn that Vicksburg could never be taken by a direct assault. Grant's Vickburg seige came to symbolize the ideological stand-off as well. Having grown up in the far reaches of Commanche country, I was not prepared to learn that, in the South, to this day, there is still found a lingering resentment that can only be felt by those who had been occupied by a foreign power.

It was among those disaffected descendants of the Civil War south that the GOP found manna, a strategy often falsely attributed to Kevin Phillips its most articulate voice.

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

--Kevin Phillips

It must be remembered that this "Negro vote" had been the GOP's to lose. They were, after all, the party of Lincoln. It was "Radical Republicans" --not Lincoln --who had imposed upon southern states a reconstruction that turned the South into occupied territory which at the time fared little better than Iraq. The era of "reconstruction" is best known for the terrorist organization it spawned: the Ku Klux Klan.

The raison d'etre of the KKK was to keep 'negroes' from voting for Republicans. The ranks of the KKK were filled by angry southern Democrats! As recently as the early 1960's, one could find in Louisiana (and presumably other southern states as well) large political billboards promising 'Continued Segregation"! The billboards were posted by Democratic --not GOP --candidates.

While it is true that the economies of the 11 states making up the confederacy were dependent upon slavery to produce and harvest the crops (most famously, cotton), it is a mistake to ascribe to the North some vague, mythical moral superiority. Slavery, to be sure, was illegal in the north but only a handful of 'yankees' actively opposed it. Martin Scorsese got it right; Lincoln was as widely despised in New York as he had been in the deep south.

Not every division in America is traced directly to the civil war, although you will find die hards and throwbacks who will --to this day --defend the institution of slavery. Still others resent the harsh reconstruction. It was Nixon's evil genius that his campaign did not merely overcome the natural resentment of his party's role in "reconstructing" the South --it exploited it! That the Democrats would pay dearly for having done the right thing explains the party's timidity today. Democrats have historically paid high prices for being or doing right. The GOP, by contrast, is rewarded handsomely for making a Faustian bargain with bigotry and prejudice. As he signed the Voting Rights Act, LBJ famously said that he was, in fact, forever ceding the South to the GOP.

A long story is, of necessity, made short. Nixon's legacy is that of a GOP benefiting from George Wallace's politics of hate but as well from LBJ's signature on the Voting Rights Act. The GOP found votes wherever there was resentment or prejudice. Clearly --but for the GOP exploitation of hate, distrust and lingering prejudice, our various peoples throughout the nation might have put the Civil War behind them and moved forward.

But for the GOP's war on labor as well as "the nattering nabobs of negativity", Spiro Agnew's code word for academics and free thinkers, the Civil War might have been transcended! Alas, no! It was not to be! The Civil War looms like a ghost upon the body politic. It was only a few years ago that, in Jaspar, Texas bigots dragged a black man at high speeds over back country roads until very nearly nothing was left of his body.

Not so long ago, lynchings and public burnings of black people were not merely tolerated but celebrated like county fairs. Photographs of the events were mailed as post cards. It made of civic murder a macabre celebration, literally, a barbecue.

Thus --American History is of two chapters --pre Civil War and post Civil war. American History cannot be understood without understanding the economics of the Antebellum South and the institution of slavery upon which it depended. The "rise of the South", as we have seen, cannot be understood outside that context. It is one of the great ironies of history that the 'south' that hated Lincoln became Nixon's "Solid South".

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I fell in love with Ashokan Farewell during Ken Burns' famous "Civil War" series on PBS. Hearing Jay Unger's story of its creation helps me appreciate it the more. I like his description of it as a "Scottish Lament".

Ken Burns was wise to allow this piece to set the mood for what has been --until now --America's most profound tragedy --the loss, perhaps forever, of our freedoms. And, again, as then, that tragic loss has come not from abroad but from the cancer within.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

The right wing thinks that because Bush fucked up Iraq, more Americans should die. The right wing thinks that because Bush has waged war on all the wrong countries, more Americans should die. The right wing thinks that because Bush's approval ratings are in the toilet, more Americans should die!

There is something psychotic about the right wing's perverse nostalgia for those halcyon days of national tragedy --the deaths of some 3,000 innocent people, most of whom were American citizens. There is but pure evil in the right wing's wish to find in American deaths, Bush's vindication. Columnist Stu Bykofsky who hopes "terrorists" strike the US for our own good.

ONE MONTH from The Anniversary, I'm thinking another 9/11 would help America.

What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing?

ONE MONTH from The Anniversary, I'm thinking another 9/11 would help America.

What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing?

A bastard so sick of how splintered we are politically - thanks mainly to our ineptitude in Iraq - that we have forgotten who the enemy is.

It is not Bush and it is not Hillary and it is not Daily Kos or Bill O'Reilly or Giuliani or Barack. It is global terrorists who use Islam to justify their hideous sins, including blowing up women and children.

...Iraq has fractured the US into jigsaw pieces of competing interests that encourage our enemies. We are deeply divided and division is weakness.

What this bastard Byofsky is saying is that because Bush fucked up his war of naked aggression against a nation that even GOP fanatics now admit had nothing whatsoever to do with the events of 911, the US should be struck by terrorists again.

It's not surprising that Bkkofsky's biggest booster was Faux News with a headline across the screen that read:

NEED ANOTHER 911

And if that is not enough, Fox dares to defend its indefensible, evil position, that of wishing deaths upon Americans that Bush might become the "hero" he never was and never will be. Watch this and puke!

It would appear to me that the right wing has given their treasonous game away. They are positively nostalgic about 911. The phrase "need another 911" sounds like a call for action. The phrase sounds for all the world like a signal. Need another 911!!

Homeland Security Director, Michael Chertoff, member of the radical "Federalist Society", states that he has a feeling in his gut that Bykofky will get his wish --another deadly terrorist attack!

He got as specific as saying that al-Qaida seems to like the summer, but as to the rest of it, he is perfectly content to let us sit and wait and worry — and to contemplate his gut.

His gut!

We used to have John Ashcroft’s major announcements.

We used to have David Paulison’s breathless advisories about how to use duct tape against radiation attacks.

Ric Santorum on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, wistfully implied that more terrorist attacks will occur and that they will "... alter the body politic" leading to a reversal of the anti-war sentiment in America. Again, the right wing theme is sounded. The right wing seeks in the deaths of more innocent Americans a vindication of Bush's policy of aggression, torture and war crimes.

Bush proves himself a "state absolutist", arrogating unto himself the power to wage war on the American people.

The President is now claiming, and is aggressively exercising, the right to use any and all war powers against American citizens even within the United States, and he insists that neither Congress nor the courts can do anything to stop him or even restrict him.

To find Bush's vindication in the deaths of more innocent Americans is a symptom of a very virulent form of psychotic delusion. Again --Bush's wars have had nothing to do with terrorism other than to make terrorism worse.

To wish for the deaths of innocent Americans is symptomatic of an utter lack of empathy, said by Dr. Gustav Gilbert --whose job it was to interview accused Nazi war criminals --to be the very root of "evil"